The List
by Dread Pirate Rinja
Summary: Ten times Viral told death to kindly bugger off... and one time he really wished he hadn't. Gen.


_Disclaimer: Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann and its affiliated characters/settings/crack are all the property of Gainax._

_**Warnings:**__ lots of f-bombs and bad language, morbid humor, maybe some spoilers if you know what you're looking at (post-timeskip timeline)_

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**The List.  
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**I.**

The look of surprise on the whelp of a pilot's face has to mirror his own, Viral notes absently. It isn't every day that you see someone else shoot you a good five times with a blaster, and then realize that you aren't dead.

Hurts like hell, though – enough that he is no longer mildly annoyed, he's downright crabby. 

"That's gonna cost you, kid," he growls, and the pilot is still numb from shock until Viral beats him to an inch of his young life.

It only occurs to Viral _after _the fact – after the pilots turn tail and whimper all the way home, and after the wounds heal over a good half hour later – that this really is the first time he's faced death and told it to fuck off. Not that he hasn't _almost_ died before, but this time, it's likely a normal person – beastmen included – should have been dead.

He isn't.

Thrilling, really.

**II.**

One of the pilot's Grapals brushes against Viral's arm while he's directing the refugees underground, and it puts him just off-balance enough that he tumbles over the side of the crevice leading below the surface.

He hears – _feels –_ something snap, and his head suddenly doesn't seem like it's properly attached to his neck anymore.

_Fuck._

**III.**

This has to be the stupidest way to die. Ever.

_What. The. Fuck. _Viral glares back at the rock he tripped over, and then down at the tree sapling he managed to impale himself on.

This, he decides right then and there, royally sucks. Then he remembers that it's a _good thing I'm fucking immortal_, and pulls himself off the sapling (which is fantastically sharp, by the way).

"What the fuck are you looking at?" he snaps at one of the snickering companions traveling across the desert with him. Viral scowls.

He isn't going to live this one down for a while.

**IV.**

The evening meal slides through the bars in their cells – they'd been separated from the other prisoners after the fight in the showers – and Viral frowns at the rather nasty-looking rhino-chicken plate near his bare feet. But food is food, even if he technically doesn't need it, so he takes a petulantly large bite.

And immediately passes out when his windpipe is cut off by a sharp bone in the meat.

Coming awake to the sound of his own coughing and Simon's worried voice is annoying, to say the least. The intrusion in his throat is now gone, though his entire upper digestive system is burning unpleasantly.

"Watch out for chicken bones," he growls hoarsely to Simon, then realizes he's just topped the list of _Fucking Stupid Ways to Die._

**V.**

First, under the ground, then the surface, and now space. Viral snorts at how much has changed, even in just Simon's puny lifespan. Humans really are ambitious bastards.

And they're really bad at making space suits for anyone vaguely not human-shaped, too. 

Apparently, his bulging forearms were too much for the seal on the suit. Viral crosses his arms as he hovers outside the airlock, face red as he can't get air, but his immortality not letting him die from lack of it, the vacuum of space nearly pulling his innards out before some idiot on the inside can open the door to let him back in.

His list is growing.

**VI.**

"Viral, look out!"

The warning comes just a split second too late – he doesn't turn in time.

He spends his healing hours designing a new Grapal, trying to remember how many "du"s need to be tacked on to the end of Enki's newest incarnation.

**VII.**

Viral is thanking his lucky stars that he's immortal, once again. 

Drowning in the bath tub is extremely unpleasant, even though he recovers from it rather quickly – much faster than he does from the bleeding-related deaths. He wouldn't dare be caught dying naked, after all the hell he'd given that nudist Kamina and crew during one rather... _unforgettable_... ambush. 

_Ugh._ Viral has a sudden urge to gouge out his eyeballs in hopes that the image will go away. Scrubbing them seems to be doing the–_owfuck!_

..._Goddammit._

**VIII.**

He only goes because the kids' kids want him to come along and play babysitter. Why they'd want an angry, bitter, crazy old beastman to accompany them is beyond him, but he goes anyway, because Gimmy and Darry's children are way too much like their parents, and he's still too much of a fucking sucker.

They drag him to the porcupine-tiger exhibit with glee, and insist that they all stay long enough to watch it get fed.

... Viral _refuses _to admit what goes wrong – if he ignores that memory enough, maybe it'll just go away – but he certainly never visits a zoo again.

**IX.**

There is no room to move, much less shiver and chatter his pointed teeth. His skin's going to flake off in nice, frozen flaky chunks at this point, no matter who comes for him. Viral's only thoughts are: _I hate the North, _and,_it's too fucking cold._

He waits for someone to come defrost him, and hopes they haven't forgotten him.

**X.**

Well, who would have thought – Simon's drill really does reach the heavens. And it's _fucking sharp_ on the receiving end.

Viral is never flying above Gurren-Lagann again. _Ever_.

... This one is going to be hard to top.

**one.**

There comes a point where Viral can barely remember where this all began. Faces blur together until they are no longer familiar to him – the old ones, now long gone, are slowly forgotten. Even the old fear that the word _beastmen_ once drummed up no longer exists, having been lost in the textbooks once Viral's legacy reaches the new young generations of humanity. Viral is now a relic, something old that doesn't seem to fit in anywhere anymore. It's like at some point he's forgotten even how to change. Maybe not so much forgotten as exhausted. Really, he doesn't mind change, seeing as he's experienced so much of it, but _god_, he's _tired_ of it. Because really, even when everything changes, _nothing_ does.

Now, it doesn't matter to him one damn bit if his death is stupid; he just wishes that he could experience it. Just once – once would be enough, even after a lifetime or twenty of trying. He's bored, exhausted, and even the defense of fair play doesn't belong in his hands anymore.

The Helix King, Viral recalls (even if only vaguely, when he sees pictures and textbooks of the remaining head), really is a sadistic bastard.

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_**.end.**_

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_My first foray into Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann! (The drill crack, it is amazing!) This is a belated birthday/request fic for Varethane, who wanted TTGL and Viral fic for her present. I hope this satisfies that need for now, Thane! -loves on-_

_Comments are always awesome, especially since Viral gave me such a hard time. x3_


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